Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Look, as long as CW brings in a subpar product, you can expect it to have lower attendances. Does anyone honestly expect similar crowds this coming summer as this past year? I don't. Why? Too many people were pissed off and complained, to pour their money down that money pit. People aren't stupid with their money. They realize when they are getting ripped off. Honestly 15 bucks for a ticket at an MLS game is prob. a better deal than 55 for a similar to lower level of play, where nobody gives a ********.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Exactly, because the first sentence of yours I quote here is the wrong approach. What you or MLS or anyone else deem to be a viable idea may or may not actually be viable. Instead of having one idea decreed and uniformly enforced across all clubs, let competing ideas be spread across competing clubs. Some will turn out to be bad ideas and have therefore negative results, some will turn out to be good ideas. The good ideas would likely be adopted by others. The bad ones would not. If you have the proper structure in place to support such a league, there should ultimately be more than large enough a fan base to support a 1st division professional soccer league. MLS has decided that saftey trumps growth and has structured the entire league accordingly. Champions World disagrees with that approach (it is what caused Subotnick and Charlie to leave MLS in the first place) and has decided to do what they're doing.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U I don't know about Subotnick, however Charlie left because he was very bad at what he did. He ran a second-rate organization, whose reverberations are still felt today. The boner he had with making the Metros into modern Milan, resulted in a great deal of possible fans being turned away. Look people, I understand the infatuation of going for big. However, the league is in a terribly precarious state right now. It still is. We need to expand the player pool of American talent, build the a sound base, and then we can go buy players. I think that is the only option. The CW option is not viable, because they aren't dealing with the future of American soccer. They just have a get RICH quick scheme there, that is the difference. Those schemes look great for a while, and make you plenty money for a few bright years, but in the future?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Hmmmmmmmmm let's see: a) Have everyone do their own thing just like the NHL and MLB, and two clubs will make money and win all the titles and leave everybody else bankrupt and destroy the league while owners who sell out their team just so they make money not caring about what the team does on the field. OR b) Have a system where every owner is in it together forcing them to do things that are not only good for their team but also for the league. And have a salary cap (something people in England want the EPL to have!) so owners don't blow the money on two "stars" and make it so the sport grows, which benefits everybody. SEM may seem strange but it's what's best for this league RIGHT NOW. If every team has a 60,000+ seat SSS and the league is making hundreds of millions then we can talk about dropping SEM.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U So therefore Champions World Shouldn't be allowed to do what they're doing and are being "unfair" to MLS?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U No one denies that -- here in the states. But if FIFA ruled any player who particapted in matches between carpetbagging teams on a show tour that failed to include a team from the host country would be subject to suspension and a fine -- the feds get trumped, de facto. The players would refuse to show; the feds can't make them leave Europe and come here. Let CW argue its case in the Hague.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U then get together with your friends and sink $400 million dollars into starting a league. until then, working within the MLS framework is the only option. I'd like to here proposals how to improve it. Champions World is doing nothing to start a 1st division league here. what are they doing except trying to make a quick buck. i think they're doing little to grow the sport here. i don't care if they keep at it. but for garber to call Man U out for not helping soccer here by playing opposite the all-star game is reasonable to me with only 3 owners 1-2 years ago, MLS could not credibly have teams run with different ideas i don't know what you're proposing except the destruction of MLS and a pure capitalistic system. that's what I wanted 10 years ago, but right now MLS does seem viable to me. Is something better viable? I don't know, but I'd prefer to stay within the realm of reality and here actual suggestions for change, not generic - "competing idea" comments and constant knocks on the quality of MLS play
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U "Professional baseball is on the wane. Salaries must come down or the interest of the public must be increased in some way. If one or the other does not happen, bankruptcy stares every team in the face." --Albert Spalding, 1881 Oh those pesky bankrupt MLB teams. From Fordes at: http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2004/0426/066.html And as a reminder: 2004 - Red Sox - DC United 2003 - Marlins - Earthquakes 2002 - Angels - Galaxy 2001 - Diamondbacks - Earthquakes 2000 - Yankees - Wizards 1999 - Yankees - DC United 1998 - Yankees - Fire 1997 - Marlins - DC United 1996 - Yankees - DC United Seems to me there's been the same number of title winners (five) from each league since MLS started. Granted there's more MLB teams but that still isn't the same two teams winning all the titles. The Yankees haven't won the title in four years now and I assume they were the team you were referencing. MLB teams have generally seen their franchise values go up around 10% per annum. The last MLB team to go bankrupt were the Orioles a while ago and that had nothing to do with the team's financial problems but rather those of the owner at the time. Attendance in MLB is up significantly over it's levels in the mid 90s. MLB set attendance records for the league this year, MLS did not. The biggest myth in American sports is that baseball is careening toward some cliff where it will inevitably plunge to its death. The reality is that it's a healthy and thriving industry often in spite of its own central management blunders. Teams manage themselves in a variety of ways in MLB and success can come from any one of a different number of approaches: spending wildly like the Yankees, a combination of high priced players and bargain signings like the Red Sox, or a team built exclusively through its farm system like the Twins , Marlins and A's, or a mix and match combination of them all. Soccer teams from other parts of the world bring in a hell of a lot less money than MLS teams do and still manage to survive in a non-protectionist environment like the one MLS teams operate in. Boca Juniors and River Plate still manage to find plenty of opponents every year. Glentoran has a whole host of other teams from Northern Ireland on their schedule this year. The Sounders will once again take the field in 2005.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U That's a non-responsive answer. Whether MLS is structured in a way that increases the likelihood of long term growth and success has no bearing on my personal ability to finance a soccer league. You seem to think I'm anti-MLS. I'm pro-MLS which is exactly why I'm as critical of its setup as I am. I want this damn league to do well, but I don't think the current structure is conducive to that goal.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Good point, Voros, but major league baseball is popular. They can afford to spend like crazy because their revenues are huge, and the franchise values are high because potential buyers know that millions of people will consistently watch baseball, in person and on TV. For soccer, the jury is still out. The main comment I wanted to make was that the quote listed at the beginning of this thread may be somewhat inflammatory and therefore a better subject for Bigsoccer, but if you haven't read the whole interview (of Tim Leiweke, not Don Garber), you should. Many of the comments are much in line with what people have said in this thread: we need better players, we have an international connection that we're not using, we have to compete in a global soccer marketplace. Whereas detractors see the ChampionsWorld comments as a complaint that MLS doesn't want to have to compete with CW, Leiweke spins it the opposite way: they don't want to let us compete with them. I don't think I would really interpret it like that, but read the interview anyway and decide for yourself.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U I'd have to go against the grain here and say that "monopoly" is a laughable concept, especially in this case. If, let's say, a person opens 10 convenience stores, does he not have the right to dictate wages in his own business? But is it based on real threats (legal and/or political) or is this just hopeful whining designed to get a favorable match-up and/or revenue share? I know they tried playing hardball with some Mexican game promoters with regard to venues availability but that seems to be a long gone cause as the Mexican team seem to play half of its CONCACAF qualifiers somewhere in the US. The MLS vs. a foreign Club games don't draw, which is why you don't see many of them. Plus, I suspect that TV rights sold to the worldwide audiences for the CW games generate substantial revenues also. The same can not be said for the MLS competition.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Your handle and the late Generalfeldmaschall last name are homonyms. Surely, that had occurred to you before.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Do you assume the current structure will remain the same for the long term, 50 years, or that the current structure is bad for today? The Fire are run differently from the Metros who are run differently from the Galaxy who are run differently from United. They have a common owner and a unified transfer policy with the rest of MLS desined to keep the league viable. What do you suggest for now?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U The problem with this scenario is that the USSF then gets the shit sued out of it by CW, and likely will lose in a painful fashion, FIFA edict or no FIFA edict. USSF is well aware of this, and that - along with the money it pockets from CW - is why it sanctions such games.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Fine: a) SEM must go. Non-negotiable. You can't have the same owner owning multiple teams without questions about the integrity of the contests arising. Another problem with single entity is that it creates the problem of giving incentives to teams to keep costs low while reducing incentives to generate increased revenue. A team pays 100% of its costs, it gets to keep 40% or so of its revenues. So a dollar saved is susbtantially more valuable than a dollar earned. As Roger Noll (PHD, Economics - Stanford) puts it "MLS is poorly organized, starting with its single-entity structure." b) Cap the 1st division at 16 teams. For the first 5 years these 16 teams will remain constant unless a team either folds or chooses to relegate itself to a lower division at which point a team from a lower division (absorbed from the current USL) would be promoted to the top division (criterisa for these first five years for such an occurrence can be negotiated and argued). After 5 years a pro/rel setup of some sort is instituted. If you like, it could be setup where one or more teams each year are not relegated unless they lose a home and home series against the potential promoted team from the lower division (again that's negotiable). Pro/rel isn't a good idea because it's what they do in Europe, it's a good idea because it's an effective mechanism for emphasizing incentives for good management, and solves the potentially disastrous problems that can occur from creating expansion teams from whole cloth at the top levels. c) Team rosters are capped at 25 players, players 19 or younger are exempt from roster rules. d) No salary cap. No limits on transfer fees. e) No revenue sharing other than the gate for gameday (40% of the gate for the road team sounds good) amongst teams for the first five years. 60% revenues generated nationally by the league (licensing, broadcasting contracts, etc.) are distributed equally among the 16 teams. 10% of these revenues are distributed equally among the teams in lower levels. 30% is reserved for end of season cash prizes for order of finish throughout the leagues. After five years, all local revenues generated by each team are shared at a rate of 20% per team and the pot is then redistributed equally among the 16 teams. (There can be provisions for small percentages of all of this money to go the league or to subsidize the lower leagues but only a small amount). Transfer fees received are not shared at any time. f) Expansion (new teams) occurs only in the lower leagues. If someone does not wish to purchase an existing top level franchise, they must apply for an expansion slot in a lower league and attempt to reach the top level through promotion. This prevents unprepared or poorly capitalized owners from playing with matches around the expensive houses as happened to the NASL. If they go belly up, they do so in an environment were such an outcome is neither unexpected nor indicative of the expected outcomes of the top franchises. Pro/rel should provide sufficent franchise movement to allow potentially worthy franchises to get their opportunities to establish themselves at the highest level. g) The playoff structure is debateable. I personally prefer a playoff structure where all the teams 1st placed teams and so therefore have some claims on being possible champions. Four divisions of four teams with unbalanced schedules can work, and the winners of each goes to the playoffs. The last placed teams in each can also be involved in a relegation type playoff. Playoffs should exist though. Single table is likely less profitable long term and is much easier for a single team to dominate championships. h) The US Open Cup is also debateable, but in my opinion US Soccer should consider making the tournament culminate with a single venue torunament at some point during the summer where the league will take a break. The final of which could take the place of the All-Star game as the midseason showcase event. Again, not critical but an idea. i) The amateur draft is no more. I am agnostic on the topic of territorial rights to young players. This can be dealt with, but it's important to have some sort of structure that gives incentives to develop youth players locally. The draft does just the opposite. Obviously there's more to it than all that, but I think that it would be a better setup. Here's a good paper on the topic (PDF file): http://siepr.stanford.edu/papers/pdf/02-43.pdf
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U I agree entirely. It is the lack of compelling, competitive games in MLS that has caused me essentially to give up going to MLS games. It has little or nothing to do with the standard of play, which anyway is perfectly respectable imo. But the asinine 8 out of 10 playoffs, coupled with rigged parity, the lack of pro/rel and the lack of credible confederation competitions to qualify for make for a 'regular' season that is essentially an exhibition season. Quite honestly, I have better uses for my $$$s. And before anyone screams at me, I wouldn't cross the road to watch a Champions World game.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U But I was responding to a comment that suggested Baseball's open-market ways were leading to the bankruptcy of its teams and the demise of its sport. That's not happening. It's not that franchise values are high. It's that they keep going up and up and up and up. If Baseball is strugggling financially, attendance records and continually rising franchise values (amidst a recession in the rest of the country) is a funny way of showing it. I'm not advocating free-spending for Soccer teams, I'm advocating allowing teams to do that if they think it's a viable model and suffering consequences if they're wrong and reaping the benefits if they are right. There's plenty of other soccer clubs around the world who draw no better than MLS and make less money than MLS and manage to survive in a more free-market oriented league. Most people don't spend millions on a business for the sole purpose of running them into the ground immediately thereafter. What happened in the NASL was the success of the Cosmos causing a bunch of fly- by-nighters to jump in thinking they've found El Dorado with predictable results. Within three years of that moronic expansion scheme, a league that looked to be booming was more or less finished because the value of all the franchises had bottomed out. Yes the Cosmos helped bury the NASL but they did so by unreasonably raising expectations leading to the catastrophic failure of many clubs who had jumped in with both feet looking to ride the wave.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Ok somewhat bad comparison. Now let's compare two similar soccer leagues in this country: MLS and the A-League (Now USL-1). The A-League has many of what some of you are asking for: no SEM, every team for themselves, no money sharing etc. Now many teams have had success (Seattle, Monteal, Rochester) but compare that to the teams that have failed and died (Edmonton, Millwaukee, Syracuse) and others (Portland) are struggling. The A-League even so far as a few years ago had 29 teams in it, now it's down to 12. Why? The teams couldn't hack it financially and they folded. In MLS in 9 years only two teams are non-existent, Miami and Tampa Bay (Though if Glazer had thrown 10% of the cash he's throwing at Man U now they'd still be alive) but the owners of MLS have pooled together and have been able to survive and looking to turn a profit soon whereas the A-League's err USL-1's future is uncertain (Two of the bigger clubs, Seattle and Rochester, may be leaving) but they may have just turned a new leaf, who knows. So far in this country when it comes to the BUSINESS of soccer, SEM is making it seem profitable.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U You know voros, you put a good argument, I'll give you credit for that. But personally I'm more willing to accept the approach of numerous businessmen that have actually turned a profit than a college economics professor (even if they are from Stanford). SEM represents what is needed for the sport in this country, we have to be in it together or we're going to go nowhere. We all want the same goal (making a professional soccer league in this country a success) so why not work together, pool our resources and do it. Making everyman for himself may work for existing leagues like the EPL, La Liga, die Bundesliga etc. But we're starting from scratch and we can't be at each others throats. MLS is a new league, it's young but it's starting to grow, we can either change things now and (most likely) screw it up to please a few and be a true capitalist market where only a few win or stay the course and try to make this sport a success where everybody wins.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U They're not run particularly differently in the manner that matters to the lion's share of their potential consumers. They spend the same on players. None run youth academies because there's no incentives to do so. They all appear to be trying to achieve the same goal of extorting a tax payer funded stadium from suburban municipalities (generally acting in their own interests and against those of their constituents) except for the ones that have already done so. Known players are often distributed in a random fashion. Teams that do well one year, often do poorly the next and vice-versa. In short, the structure has tended to produce 10 different flavors of ice cream which more or less all taste like vanilla. Me personally, I like my ice cream so much that 10 different flavors of vanilla is fine by me. I'm happy to have any ice cream at all. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't be happier still if I could have strawberry, or pistachio, or cookie dough flavored, or mint chocolate chip. And that doesn't mean others will settle for nothing but vanilla. Attendance is essentially not growing. Even if you throw out 1996 as an aberration, attendance for the 9 original teams has remained flat. Now some teams are up and some teams are down, but on total it's mostly the same throughout MLS' nine years. The problem isn't a lack of popularity of Soccer in the USA. Soccer is fairly popular: drawing 15,000 a game is a figure most clubs around the world would kill for. The problem is these same clubs were also drawing 15,000 a game in 1997, and six clubs were drawing more than 15,000 a game in 1977. This isn't really about my preferences, it's what I think is best long term for the league (not necessarily the owners), and I don't think this is it.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Proof? I'm curious to see where you got this information (I'm not doubting since I honestly don't know the attendance figures).
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U We meaning, apparently, everybody except the folks in Champions League and the USL. As for Noll, you'll find that referring to him as merely a College Econ professor sells him short by a very long margin. When it comes to the field of sports economics, he (along with Andrew Zimbalist) is big time. Noll's most famous as the guy the MLBPA hired to go over MLB's books in the mid 80s. At any rate, I don't think you'll find too many sports economists who think MLS' league structure is a good one, at least for the league. Most guys who enter the Econ field tend not to be socialists though there are exceptions. MLS right now is not a sport where "everybody wins." The whole point of sport is not everybody can win. What MLS seeks to do is make it a sport where "everybody ties." Thus far it has not thusfar captivated the public's imagination.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U How UEFA come into the discussion? And USL is doing their own thing (and failing at it). Ok, what business has he run? You as in made money with it? Economics is all and good but I'd take my chances with a bunch of businessmen like Hunt, Kroenke, Checketts, Anschultz and the like that have actually made successful products and companies in this country instead of a bunch of economists that haven't proven anything except tossing a bunch of ideas into the wind. Clever . MLS is trying their damn hardest to make soccer a popular spectator sport in this country while having rules that actually make the league competitive and affordable, not just to line their pockets. How's that a "everybody ties" situation?
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U Here's the graph that got me in so much trouble in the other thread, but it is exactly what I claim it is: average yearly attendance for the 9 MLS teams active from 1996 until now against the same figures for the 28 MLB teams active during the same time frame. (MLS is the green line with the blue dots) The Fire were up a bit this year over their historical average for Soldier Field, but not by a ton and certainly not by enough to significantly shift the slope of that graph. The graph means only what it literally means (that the average attendance in aggregate of the 9 remaining original teams has not risen significantly since inception), so you can read too much into it, but I'd rather it look different than it does nonetheless. Particularly with improved stadium situations in Columbus and LA.
Re: AEG powerman blasted ChampionsWorld, Man U I meant to say Champions World. And how is the USL failing? Some teams are failing, true, but at that level it's expected and they are trying to sell a product there just might not be a market for (professional minor league soccer in mostly smaller markets with no higher league to get promoted to). Some teams failed in MLS as well. WUSA was single entity and it failed. But the A-league has lasted as long as MLS with a substantially less attractive product to sell. The majority of the teams in PSL and PDL actually seem to be doing okay for themselves by running low cost semi-pro and amateur teams.